Oct 4, 2008

This is a sticky topic for it has many opinions and many answers, but I thought that I'd get my own opinion out there on how I feel.

War. What's the point of it? How can we retain peace by killing others? Why start one at all? How does a war start in the first place? These are questions that I've been asking since I was young, and even more now that I'm older and one of the hot topic amongst teens is this War in Iraq. I'm constantly hearing kids at my school argue about their opinions on this, and even teachers arguing with students about it. I try to stay out of these conversations, but now it's inevitable. Here's what I think...

To me, war is pointless. From learning about it in History class to hearing it on the news every night, no one or nothing has showed me the point of sending innocent people, even if they volunteer, to fight and kill other innocent people. I know that that's a general statement, but it's pretty much what we're doing. We're sending these men and women to fight in a foreign country and kill them just to try to make peace. What kind of peace is it if a country is losing thousands of soldiers and civilians every year? To me, peace can't be made this way. It should be made by compromise and talk, not violence. By sending our troops over to Iraq and those other countries in the Middle East, we're just pretty much doing the same thing that they did to us on 9/11. It's not justice! It's not solving anything. I'm so tired of hearing about these young people die in battle. Some of these people are two or three years older than myself! They had so much coming for them in the future and yet, they're killed trying to save our country. I'm also tired of hearing Obama and McCain say that they're gonna pull our troops out asap. I'm sorry, but that's not going to happen; we're too deep in this battle. When this war, this killing, going to end? I'll probably be old and dieing by the time that this war ends. That's nearly half of my life hearing about these young and older people dieing because of this. Why can't we just live peacefully with each other? Why can't we settle this in a civil matter? Because we don't know how to. It's because we're not sure how to speak to people civilly and non-violently.

So this brings me to a conversation that I had with one of my best friends. It was random and it was funny. We were talking about this topic, war, and about the current presidential election. I, personally, don't think that either of the current candidates are able to lead our nation. In joking, I said why not have Barney, the great purple dinosaur, be president. She laughed at me, but then I began to seriously think this. Not necessarily have Barney be our president, but someone who is like him be president. I mean, he teaches us how to share and care and how to be nice to others along with other basic things that we learn in our youngin' years. Someone like Barney could, possibly, make our nation a bit more peaceful and, possibly, help end some of the violence.

I know what I'm saying may be just or unjust to some people out there, but this is how I feel and this is my opinion. It may sound childish because I am, technically, a child. I'm sorry for anyone who is offended or bothered by this post and my opinion. Thank you for reading this. =D